


Funny Moment

by LadyAJ_13



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-28
Updated: 2019-11-28
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:47:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21596362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyAJ_13/pseuds/LadyAJ_13
Summary: He goes for his inside jacket pocket, but the shock of cold air makes him realise what he's done. He shoves his hand back, too slow – Morse has caught the movement, and his lips twitch in gleeful realisation.“New resolution?”“It's February.”
Relationships: Peter Jakes/Endeavour Morse
Comments: 18
Kudos: 65





	Funny Moment

Peter curls his hand into a fist in his pocket. It's damn cold out here, and this witness, a Mrs Andrews – well, if she saw anything at all she's taking her time about saying.

“And then what?”

It's abrupt, but he hasn't got the patience today. Let the old bag look at him like that, at this rate he'd put money on her having called the tip line just to get someone to talk to. And he gets it – pensioner loneliness, no laughing matter – but they're cops, and they've got better things to do.

“Right, thanks.”

He turns on his heel and stalks towards the bridge, leaving her on her doorstep and Morse to scamper after him. His fingers twitch, and he stills them carefully. Mind on the case. That was a dead end, but it doesn't mean they give up. Go back to the beginning. The crime scene. Will DeBryn have finished the autopsy yet? He checks his watch. God, he hates it when innocent people get caught in the crossfire. No one expects a day to be their last.

“What's up with you?”

He doesn't look at Morse, just grunts as he buries his hands back in his pockets. The Christchurch meadow is still pale with frost in the distance, and he fixes his eyes on it as they walk. Another hour until DeBryn's results.

“Hey.” Morse pokes him and he glares back. He pulls his right hand out and goes for his inside jacket pocket instead, but the shock of cold air makes him realise what he's done. He shoves it back, too slow – Morse has caught the movement, and his lips twitch in gleeful realisation.

“New resolution?”

“It's February.”

“Well yeah, but you're being a right bastard and you always turn into a nightmare when-”

“You don't like me at the best of times.”

Morse shrugs, and Peter balls his hands into fists again; clench and release, clench and release. He doesn't hate Morse, and he's pretty sure Morse doesn’t hate him either. But they started off fractious and it's easier to pretend nothing's changed than examine the new situation. The one that leaves them off-balance, the one of half-thoughts and stolen looks – the one they both pretend isn't there at all, except when it so obviously _is._

“DeBryn will have the results in an hour.”

“I know.”

Morse's steps slow, dragging Peter's with them. Even though it's cold, and he just wants to get back to the nick for a – for a cup of tea.

“Drink?”

Peter looks up; the familiar low door, the murmur of voices from within, even at this time on a Tuesday. The board outside advertising finest ales and passable meals. It's near enough lunchtime. “Only if you eat something too.”

It's better to turn left into the dining area and wait for two ham and cheese baguettes, than risk the cheery warmth of the bar. Morse looks longingly at deep-laquered tables and the old boys gathered round with their beers and their dogs and their air of bonhomie that says they'll still be here come closing, but follows him without comment. They eat in almost silence.

Peter pays, when it's time to go, because he was first to the till and splitting it when the bill comes to little more than a tenner seems petty. Not because Morse finished his for once, so he's feeling generous, and not because he made Morse turn left when he wanted to go right. Not that at all. There's just no sense in making extra work for the bar staff on two sarnies, a pint and a coke.

The food and the stint inside has warmed him enough that the last five minutes back to the station isn't enough to refreeze his toes. He settles himself – as much as he can settle – to office work for the rest of the day. When he receives DeBryn's report he copies the highlights onto the evidence board before forwarding the email to the rest of the team. He taps the witness' useless statement into his computer and strikes through her name on their list of leads, leaving it woefully empty. He plays with different colour marker pens, drawing connections that don't exist before rubbing them out with his sleeve.

Jesus, this case. He scrubs a hand over his forehead, perches on the edge of his desk and stares at the board. There's not enough there for a solve, not even enough for a solid plan of action. And his brain, god his brain is hurting. His fingers keep tingling, twitching for something he won't let them have. He eats a biscuit he doesn't want and twirls a pen in his hand to let the movement out.

This was a stupid idea. What was he thinking? He never should have done this now – when they're in the middle of a murder case, what a joke. He needs to _think._ When they get a quiet spell, that's when he could -

A projectile hits him in the chest and falls to his lap. He catches it instinctively, turning the small box to read the label.

Nicotine patches.

His head snaps up. Morse grins at him from the other side of the room, before stalking over. He dips slightly, when he draws level, just enough to speak into Peter's ear. “For all our sakes. Mine especially.”

His breath sends a shiver through Peter, and he tells himself it's the nicotine between his hands, somehow seeping through the box, or at the very least the anticipation. He can feel the rush of relief – not like a cigarette, it won't be like that, nothing can be – but something. To take the edge off. Something that won't wrinkle Morse's nose as he walks past, that won't keep him at a distance as they wait for the bus together.

Yes, for Morse's sake. He's unintentionally hit the nail right on the head there, something Peter didn't want to admit even to himself.

“Go put one on then. We need your brain working at full capacity.”

He nods jerkily, scrambling to his feet. He'll have to take his shirt off, so that means the changing rooms, he's not about to strip in the office. The idea that Morse – _Morse_ , of all people – needs his brain is a heady one. He clutches the box tight, crumpling it as he swings through the changing room door. It's chilly; a constant of places where you have to take your clothes off is that they're never the right temperature. Stingy with the radiators, they turn into iceboxes in winter, and stingy with the windows, they become sweat-stained pits in summer. 

He hurries, fingers shaking as he almost strangles himself with his tie. He finally gets it loose enough to pull off, then attacks his shirt buttons. His hands are sweaty, he realises – the craving sharper than he thought – and he lets his shirt fall in a heap while he rips open the box.

How do you put one of these on? Arm? Upper arm? How long does it last? He peers at the packaging.

“Oh.”

He spins, just in time to see Morse's throat work as he swallows. 

“Uh, Mrs Andrews. I had another thought. She said she heard the milkman.”

Morse is standing right there, and Peter has his shirt off. He feels suddenly warm, frozen in place. Deeply, furtively glad for his under shirt, though he may as well be naked under that gaze for how much he feels it; sizzling where it lights on his shoulders, collar bones, the delicate skin at his wrists that's normally safe under shirt cuffs. Morse coughs, and looks away.

“They'd had the delivery on Monday, so he wasn't due Tuesday. Could have been a special delivery, but what if the thief is using a milk van to get around? Nothing suspicious about a van of empty bottles. No one would look at it twice. And it explains why there's no blood trail.”

He's still looking, Peter thinks. He's trying for eye contact, but he keeps breaking away, to flit around the room and return – to land just off where he should be, not quite eye to eye; a stare at his nose, or his cheek, that slides away before it remembers where it is and springs back. “Right,” Peter says. 

“It's, um-” Morse steps further into the room, and then he's right there in front of Peter, taking the squashed box back. “My sister had these ones. You just-” he takes out a patch and smooths it onto Peter's skin. His fingers brush against Peter's upper arm. There's no rush of nicotine – it must take a while to work – but there's a spark of a wholly different nature.

“Thanks,” he says, voice gravelly enough that he swallows compulsively.

“So, I'll check with the dairy for that street, then see what I can find on decommissioned milk vans.” Morse says, stepping back slightly, and the movement and the switch of subject back to professional clears Peter's head. 

“Right,” he repeats. “Good idea,” he adds, both because it was a good spot, this milk van thing, and because he's not sure he's got anything to add. Not until the nicotine kicks in and he can start firing on all cylinders again.

Morse nods, turns, and Peter watches as he closes the door behind him. He reaches for his shirt, but it's crumpled from its stint on the floor, so he reaches into his locker for a fresh one instead. It doesn’t match his tie as well, but it'll do for less than half a day. He shakes himself all over, a flurry of movement to re-centre himself, then runs both hands over his hair to check it's in place.

Right. He finally lets himself clear his throat, and catches his own gaze in the mirror. Funny moment over. Not sure what that was, but probably just a case of cigarette withdrawal, now solved. He stares at himself, and nods sharply.

Back to work.

**Author's Note:**

> This was a tiny plot bunny about modern!Peter trying to quite smoking - I thought 500 words. I thought, I won't even post it. And then it tripled in size, I'd got Peter out of his shirt, and I thought: what the hell, someone might like it!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [A New Addiction](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21711043) by [Robin_Fai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Robin_Fai/pseuds/Robin_Fai)




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